Corrine Foxworth
Corrine (nee Foxworth) Dollanganger Winslow Jackson, is the daughter of Alicia and Malcolm Foxworth, Sr.. She is the beautiful wife of Chris Sr. and mother of Chris Jr., Cathy, and twins Cory and Carrie. She is also the second wife of Bart Winslow and third wife of John Amos Jackson. It is also revealed in Flowers in the Attic that she is the half niece of her first husband; but in Garden of Shadows, it is revealed that she is (although completely unaware) also his younger maternal half sister, therefore naming her the stepdaughter of Olivia Foxworth and the paternal half sister of Malcolm Jr. and Joel. Her name comes from her absent paternal grandmother, as mentioned in Garden of Shadows by Malcolm. Flowers in the Attic In the late 1950's, the Dollanganger family lives a happy and nearly perfect suburban life in Gladstone, Pennsylvania. Corrine, a beautiful housewife and mother raises her four strikingly attractive children with love and pride. On Christopher's 36th birthday, she loses her husband who is the sole breadwinner in a fatal car crash and as a last resort, she returns to her parents who are elderly and strictly religious millionaires residing in a grand estate named Foxworth Hall. However, Corrine's parents had previously disowned her as the four children are inbred, so in the following months she conspires with her old mother named Olivia, to keep her adolescent children hidden away in the mansion's spacious attic so no one would learn about the family's dirty little secret. The attic is filled with two hundred years worth of family heirlooms and countless antiques. Corrine locks her children away in isolation with the attic as their playground, while their grandmother verbally and physically abuses them, all while Corrine tries to persuade her bedridden father named Malcolm, to love and accept her again and add her back into his will. Thus, securing her financial future as she will inherit her father's fortune. Corrine promises her children that the situation is only for a short while, and that they will be freed from the attic, once their grandfather passes away as it is implied he is dying from a terminal illness, and should not be alive much longer. At first, she does the best she can to help her children adjust to their new surroundings, including attending secretarial school to gain skills necessary for a job to be able to support her children and giving them endless gifts, but her going to school isn't mentioned after her children's first year of living in the attic, and it is implied she entirely lied about it. During this time Corrine seems to become increasingly indifferent to the suffering of her children and her visits become less frequent. Eventually, she stops visiting them altogether. While Corrine goes to many party's and social events and is reintroduced into the glittering world of "high society", she leaves her children entirely with her awful mother, who hates them. Olivia treats them horribly to make them feel worthless and brainwashes them into thinking they are an abomination and the spawns of Satan. At one point, she starves them for over a week, causing Chris to make the children drink his blood seeing as the only way to survive. Then the grandmother suddenly returns bringing them a small meal with powdered donuts on the side for "dessert". Afterwords, Corrine's true colors finally come forth as she becomes more and more greedy and it is revealed that Malcolm added in his will that if Corrine had children by her either of her two marriages, she would lose the inheritance and everything she acquired with it. In an act of conceited desperation and fear, she gives the children arsenic poisoning bit by bit in the powdered donuts in order to kill them for she can start a new life, (though she claims she wanted to make them a little sick in order to get them out and later report to the Grandmother of their "deaths"). Later, when her youngest child Cory mysteriously dies of the poisoning, it is implied that she placed his body in a hidden part of Foxworth Hall's attic inside a treasure trunk, and passes his death off as a case of fatal pneumonia. Because the attic is so large and filled with several strange odors, no one smelled the decomposing body. Shortly after these events, Corrine and her new younger husband, Bart Winslow leave the estate, fleeing to elope after their honeymoon to begin a "new life" without telling the children. In fact, Bart doesn't even know the children exist as Corrine has kept them a secret to him as well. Not much later, the children learn of their mother's absence, and that their grandfather, Malcolm had already been long dead, dying over half a year ago. They also discover that is was their own mother who had poisoned them and not their grandmother and that Corrine didn't inform the children about Malcolm's death as she promised, because she secretly wanted her children out of the picture or even dead as well. The children immediately escape together, after three years of being prisoners of the Foxworth attic. Corrine's daughter Cathy vows to seek revenge upon their mother one day. Petals on the wind It is revealed years later, when her children finally escape Foxworth, she doesn't attend the custody trial for the three remaining siblings and they are in Paul's custody. She travels frequently alon side her husband and Cathy sends many letters of blackmail during these times. It is later revealed that she attended every one of Cathy's ballet performances. Later in the book, it is revealed that she is indirectly responsible for Carrie's suicide when she unexpectedly saw her one day face to face. Instead of being happy to see her daughter, Corrine, fearing Carrie would blow her cover, was cruel and rejected Carrie to keep her false reputation clean. This pushes Carrie to finally break and she eats doughnuts heavily laced with arsenic to kill herself, which she is successful. Corrine secretly attends the funeral and cries when the obituary page was ripped away from her hands. Throughout the book, it is said that she frequently looks at a photo album with pictures of her deceased first husband and children before the death of her first husband. Later that year, at a Christmas Party, Cathy ambushes Corrine and forces her to reveal that she locked away her children and poisoned them. After being pressed by Cathy, she confesses, but adding in her side of the story: that her father had known that the children were locked away and forced her to poison them. She claims she'd been abused, but Bart retaliates, saying that she was never thrown a hard glance by Malcolm. Realizing the grief and damage she has caused on her family, Corrine has a serious mental breakdown and goes nearly insane. She sets Foxworth Hall ablaze where Bart and Olivia become trapped in the house and die in the fire. Later Corrine is taken away by the authorities and committed at a mental institute, though Cathy believes her alleged insanity is merely an act to avoid receiving a death sentence for Corey's murder. She forfeited the inheritance and Malcolm's will stated that the money has reverted to the now deceased Olivia, who stated in her own will that Corrine was to receive everything - including the money and the ruins of Foxworth Hall. If There Be Thorns In "If There be Thorns," it is revealed that after several years of being legitimately crazy, Corrine slowly recovered and she eventually got released from the mental institution. Surprisingly, she becomes extremely remorseful for her crimes against her family and most of all, her children. She tracks down Chris and Cathy and secretly moves next door to them in a small suburb of California, hoping to win back the trust and affection of her two adult children. Here Corrine is described as wearing a transparent black veil and black clothes, and she sits in a hard, uncomfortable rocking chair in order to punish herself for her actions towards her family. She constantly spies and watches Cathy, Chris and Jory in secret. She befriends her grandson, Bart and invites him over for cookies and ice cream and encourages him to call her "Grandmother." Jory also visits Corrine's house, where Corrine finally tells him that she really is his blood grandmother, but Jory doesn't believe her, thinking she's senile and insane. Jory decides to avoid her at all costs, but he is aware that Bart visits her on a regular basis. Corrine promises Bart a pony (as he stated that that was his heart's desire). She initially tells Bart to keep their relationship a close secret (especially from Cathy) but she eventually is found out by Chris first, then Cathy. When her grandson Bart visits, Corrine's husband John Amos begins to tell him stories about the sinful nature of women. Bart begins to act out against his family, especially Cathy. Cathy discovers who the woman next door is, confronts and utterly disgusted with her mother's return, attacks her. When Cathy turns to leave, she is knocked out by John Amos and both women are locked in the cellar. Corrine comforts a badly injured Cathy and makes John promise to get her to a hospital. When she witnesses Cathy hallucinate that she was twelve years old and back in the attic, she forces Bart to go get Chris to save them. Cathy stops hallucinating but rejects Corrine. Cathy hits Corrine, knocking over some candles lit earlier, setting the house on fire. Corrine makes Bart go get Christopher for help. Bart realizes he loves Cathy and Corrine, and unlocks the cellar door. Corrine orders Bart to go out. In a selfless act, Corrine goes back into the burning house to rescue Cathy, and knocks John Amos unconscious when she sees him trying to kill Cathy. But as she gets outside, her dress goes up in flames and she chokes on the smoke. Despite trying to help her, Corrine's heart gives out and she dies. Her lifeless body is cradled by Chris who says "she died saving her daughter." They watch as the mansion burns to the ground, taking John Amos and Malcolm's diary with it. Later (after being convinced by Bart) Cathy, Chris, Bart and Jory bury Corrine besides her second husband and Bart's biological father where Cathy and Chris finally forgive her at her funeral. In her will, Corrine leaves her entire estate - the ruins of Foxworth Hall, the family fortune and all her belongings to her three grandchildren which were held in trust by Chris and Cathy until their 25th birthdays, meaning that even if John Amos had survived, he wouldn't have gotten anything, meaning his plan would have been for nothing. =Trivia:= * Corrine is shown to need a man to lean on, at first she is not independent and is naturally a very selfish person. As shown in Flowers In the Attic, but also when she marries her second husband, it is shown that she gained self-independence. * She is stated by Carrie in Petals on the wind to have a pearl necklace and butterfly clasp ("she had that diamond butterfly clasp I remember") * In Petals On the Wind, she may have put Cory's body in a hidden room in the Attic, but she states that she buried him in the ground in Flowers In the Attic. * In Garden of Shadows, her biological mother is revealed to be Alicia, who was locked up in the attic during her pregnancy with Corrine and Olivia fakes pregnancy to pass Corrine off as hers and never told Corrine the truth about not being her mother. Though, Garden was not fully written by Andrews and is not considered truly canon. Category:Characters Category:The Dollangagner Family Category:The Dollangagner Series Category:V.C. Andrews Category:Andrew Neiderman Category:V.C. Andrews Wiki Category:Browse